


Chained to a Comet

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s04e20 The Rapture, Gen, Kinda, POV Outsider, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 16:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: Jimmy remembers more from the time he spent as Castiel's vessel than he tells the Winchesters.What he had seen through Castiel’s Grace-- and was capable of remembering, as a human trying to understand what an angel saw-- was mostly Dean.





	Chained to a Comet

**Author's Note:**

> Jimmy saying that being Cas' vessel was like being "chained to a comet" in 4x20 stuck with me enough that I wanted to explore what the year he spent with Cas possessing him would have been like.  
...And then the Destiel feels snuck in. (This fic is gen, technically, but. We all know Cas loves Dean, it's just a matter of degree.)  
I'm not on season ten yet but I may do a second chapter if/when Jimmy pops up again. This probably isn't canon compliant anyway, but I had fun.
> 
> Hope you enjoy! (If you do, kudos and comments make me happy and prompt more writing.)

Jimmy remembers more from that year than he tells the Winchesters. He spent most of it shoved into the corner of his own consciousness, with the ancient burning-cold white power that was Castiel imprisoning him effortlessly. He could still see through his eyes, in a way, could still pay attention to what his body was doing, but the angel’s perception was so alien to his own that much of what he saw simply did not register.

Jimmy didn’t resent that as much as he should, probably. Castiel’s concentration on suppressing Jimmy had faltered completely only once. Jimmy had seen Hell as it truly was when Dean Winchester had stepped off the rack, and Jimmy really wishes he hadn’t. 

He refrained from fighting for his perception back after that.

He didn’t lie to the Winchesters solely because of the things he had seen in Hell, although Jimmy was not too proud to admit that was part of it. He lied because what he had seen through Castiel’s Grace and remembered was mostly Dean. 

Jimmy remembers Dean’s soul, a brilliant silver-white that even in the depths of Hell had shone like a lighthouse, had called to Castiel with a magnetism the angel could never have hoped to resist. Jimmy remembers how when Castiel faltered in the face of Hell’s endless armies, its eternal wastelands, he would pause just long enough to hear Dean screaming and surge forward with renewed strength. Jimmy remembers the threads of tainted black that had begun to creep into the brightness of Dean’s soul the day he finally broke; remembers the way Castiel had been overwhelmed by his own grief at the Righteous Man’s pain.

Jimmy remembers Castiel burning the oil-slick of demon from Dean’s soul; remembers the angel branding with his Grace in the shape of Jimmy’s handprint; remembers the angel’s conviction that he had just laid claim to something holy. Jimmy thinks he can recall Castiel carefully reassembling Dean’s body, gently reminding Dean of who he had been before Alastair-- Jimmy realized Dean had forgotten everything but the echoes of  _ Sam _ that still reverberated through the core of his soul.

That’s why Jimmy doesn’t say anything about what he remembers. It would be slightly awkward to explain to Dean Winchester that he remembers his own hands being used to rebuild Dean’s body and soul. To try to articulate that he’s seen everything that defines this Righteous Man.

(Mary Winchester burning while a child carries his brother from the house on his father’s orders.

Stealing and sacrificing and fighting for Sam. Standing between his brother and John Winchester. 

His first scars. And his next, and his next, and his next.

Cassie and Lisa and every other girl he’d ever left a piece of himself with.

The Impala, on Midwest highways in the sun, in the Pacific Northwest in the rain, in fields and on mountains beneath the stars. 

Sam disobeying, Sam leaving. Bringing Sam back.

Kissing a crossroads demon. Making his deal and never, ever regretting it.

Everything he’s sacrificed for and fought for and killed for and loved.)

(All of it, all of it, laced through with  _ SammySamSamSamSammy _ .)

There really is no word for how Castiel knows Dean, not in any human language. Jimmy can’t comprehend it, can’t hope to express it, not without Castiel’s Grace overlaying his perceptions of reality. The closest he has to how Castiel has known and loved and marked Dean is  _ soul-deep _ .

Jimmy lies, and he doesn’t tell Dean Winchester that he remembers exactly how Castiel sees him. 

He wonders if Dean Winchester will ever be able to understand what it means to be loved by an angel.

Jimmy wouldn’t know. He doesn’t remember much from the year  <strike> the eternity  </strike> he spent chained to a comet.

(He doesn’t pray anymore, but if he did, Jimmy would pray for that to be true.)


End file.
